The Season of Small Things

When I wrote this, she was three weeks old. Now, two months on, I can see more clearly what that season asked of me—and what it quietly gave.

She changed the rhythm of my days almost immediately. I moved slower then—partly because I wanted to, partly because she insisted on it. The hours stretched in quiet ways: soft light through the curtains, the weight of her in my arms, the rise and fall of her small breath. Around us, the world continued its usual urgency—children moving, work calling, news unfolding—but in those weeks, everything narrowed to what mattered most.

At the time, life felt like a series of overlapping circles—commitments, causes, plans, departures. One child settling into a new home across the country, another preparing for deployment, messages from the others arriving between meetings and errands. The motion had its own heartbeat, and I had learned to keep pace with it. But with her, that rhythm softened. The world could wait, and for once, it did.

Only later did I realize how much I had been bracing—against time, against change, even against joy. It took a baby to show me how to unclench. Those days had no clear edges; they rose and fell with her needs, and in that surrender I found a quiet I did not know I was missing. There is a rhythm to care that is not about doing, but about being—listening, watching, breathing in sync with another small life.

During that pause, Tahilla Gatherings rested, and so did I. At the time, it felt like an interlude between what was and what was still forming. The map of our family was redrawing itself, stretching wider, more complex. Stepping back was not stepping away; it was a way of listening more closely.

For that month, I moved to the coast to be close—close enough to help my daughter as she found her footing with her first child. The days there were shaped by care and repetition, by learning what could not be hurried. Every few days, I drove back over the mountain to Tahilla Farm, where the garden waited to be tucked in for winter—bulbs planted, dahlias lifted and stored. The work was steady and grounding. Between one world and the other, I thought often of family—their distances, their returns, and the quiet threads that hold us all.

When I held her, the noise of distance and decision faded. She slept, and the room took on that deep, held silence only new life can summon. I thought of Tahilla then, entering its own season of rest, the meadows folding into autumn light. Everything, it seemed, was learning to breathe again.

Two months later, I understand that season more clearly. It was never about stopping—only about listening. About allowing what was small and tender to lead, for a time.

My hope is that, somewhere in your own days, you find a moment like this too—the quiet beauty that comes from listening.

For now, that remains enough.